The present invention relates to a transmission system comprising at least a transmitter station for transmitting data blocks and at least a satellite station receiving said blocks, the satellite station including circuits whose power is supplied by at least one energy source.
The invention also relates to a satellite station suitable for such a system.
The invention finds interesting applications notably in the field of cellular mobile radio systems of the GSM, ETACS, AMPS and other types.
When a person is a user of such a system, he or she is subjected to the problem of the autonomy of the personal mobile satellite stations which problem is linked with their electric power consumption. Moreover, these stations are to be not very cumbersome and as light as possible. It is thus interesting to limit the electric power consumption of these personal stations, so that the accumulator can be as small and light as possible for a suitable autonomy.
One of the circuits that consumes much energy is the input phase-locked loop local oscillator. For saving on energy, it is known from patent specification EP 0 051 774 to stop the phase-locked loop oscillator and retain its control voltage for the plates of a capacitor. In this manner, it is possible to stop this oscillator on many occasions.
The present invention proposes a system of the type defined in the opening paragraph in which the saving of energy is improved.
Therefore, such a system is characterized in that at least one of said circuits has a means for cutting off its supply voltage used for at least one block.
The idea of the invention comprises profiting from the system in which the data are conveyed in blocks which notably have a certain redundancy. It thus happens that only several blocks relate to mobile stations. It is then possible to stop several circuits of the mobile station during the blocks which do not relate to them and to save electric energy in this way.
According to an interesting characteristic feature of the invention, an integrated circuit which includes various components and comprises a control for cutting off the power supply of certain elements is provided in the mobile stations.
Thus, according to this characteristic feature, only the elements that have no function in an integrated circuit when the mobile station is in the standby mode have their power supply cut off.
These and other aspects of the invention will be apparent from and elucidated with reference to the embodiments described hereinafter.